It was an event filled with sparks of beauty, glitz and glamour as parents and their female wards gathered at Caley College, Agidingbi, Ikeja, to witness the grand finale of beauty pageant tagged Beautiful Beginnings: My Mum and I courtesy of Dark and Lovely beauty range of products from the stable of L’Oreal Central West Africa.

The activation which was a week-long workshop designed to educate mothers and their lovely damsels on the importance of hair maintenance was organized in commemoration of the children’s day.

After a keenly contested beauty pageant that involved 15 schools, Precious Olatunde, a student from Caley College emerged the overall winner and carted home the sum of N200, 000.00 and a printer for her school. Also, the first runner-up, Islamiyah Ibuoye, a student from BolsSchool smiled home with N100, 000.00 and a desk-top computer for her school. Also, JemaimalAdegbe, a student from Frontliner School went home with the sum of N50, 000.00 and a scanner for her School.

Speaking at the event, General Manager Consumer Products Division, L’Oreal Central West Africa, SekouCoulibaly, stated that the ground breaking beauty pageant is to celebrate children and their mothers. ‘‘Apart from the fact that the Dark and lovely beautiful beginnings focuses on children, we figured out that there has not really been much education made in Nigeria on maintaining children’s hair which is why we have created the maintenance week’’.

Highlighting the motivation for involving mothers and their daughters in the workshop, Coulibaly said that, ‘‘we want to summarise the children’s day with the beauty pageant where mum and their children will be involved in order to celebrate the best looking mum and their daughters here today. It is more exciting because this is the first time that a brand is addressing kids in educating them on the importance of maintenance and then congregate their mums around that subject matter’’.

Mrs Ogundipe who is a fashionista was elated and expressed deep satisfaction towards the workshop. ‘‘As a professional fashion expert, I cannot but wonder how a Nigerian brand can weave a wonderful idea around mothers and their daughters, it is simply fantastic. The Dark and Lovely brand has already set the pace here with this initiative. Other brands can only copy but this novel idea is worth applauding’’. {fcomments}